The National Business Coalition on Health requests $46,300 to convene in Washington, DC, on July 12-13, 2004, a small conference titled "Practical Ways to Access and Use Hospital Data" to build the knowledge and capacity of NBCH's coalition constituency relative to the use and accessibility of hospital data. The meeting builds on the organization's pervious collaboration with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) relating to hospital data education. The overarching difference between this proposed conference and previous work with (AHRQ) on hospital data is that this meeting provides real, tangible information for coalitions, employers and consumers on how to access, use, and disseminate hospital data. In design and content, the conference is to make access and utilization of hospital data more simplistic and practical. The meeting is developed around the four primary types and sources of hospital data-clinical, administrative, satisfaction/survey, and operational. For each type of data, a topic expert will provide an overview that data type as well as the variety of sources for it, both publicly available and proprietary. Following each expert, at least one user case study will delineate the process of developing a hospital data reporting project. Each case study presenter will discuss the barriers, limitations, realities and issues relating to public dissemination of their project, as well as make available to attendees templates and materials relative to their project. The primary objective of the small conference is to define the actions that NBCH's coalition constituency and health care purchasers in general might take in the collection, development and use of hospital performance information resulting in improved health care safety, quality and cost containment. This project compliments the cornerstone of the organization's mission-value-based purchasing obtaining the highest quality care at the most reasonable cost.